As I said in a column last year, Disneyland is looking better it has in a decade, with attractive repair work done and smoothly operating attractions around the park. Even when things went wrong, such as a busted throttle cable disabling the Tom Sawyer raft on Tom Sawyer's Island, the attractions operators handled the situation smoothly. It's an impressive lesson for other area parks that take a far more haphazard attitude toward running their parks at full capacity.
Despite a strong crowd, we didn't wait more than 15 minutes for anything all day. Here was our itinerary (times are when we got on the ride):
8:05 - arrive Mickey & Friends parking garage
8:25 - arrive ticket booths
8:40 - arrive at top of Main Street to stake out space for the rope drop.
9:00 - head for Space Mountain. See delayed opening there and make sharp left into Buzz Lightyear
9:15 - Space Mountain.
9:25 - pictures in front of castle
9:45 - Mad Tea Party
10:05 - Storybook Land
10:20 - Carousel
10:45 - Mark Twain
11:15 - Lunch at French Market
12:10 - Tom Sawyer's Island
1:20 - Haunted Mansion
1:50 - Pirates of the Caribbean
2:15 - Jungle Cruise
2:40 - Tiki room
3:10 - Main Street Station for round-trip train ride.
Twelve attractions in about six hours, hitting all our favorites, with a leisurely lunch and no rushing. Not a bad day. The key, as always, is *get there before the park opens*.
Theme parks are for morning people. Late sleepers wait!
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And, yes! Thank you for reminding me. SoCal residents get the two one-day tickets for the price of one. The catch being, again, that you have to use the other ticket at the other park. (And you can't use them both on the same day.) But, you can get the second day free on the one-day park-hopper as well, making it basically a two-day park-hopper for $79. In both cases, the second day expires after 30 days.
Too bad as time goes on, I'm becoming less of a morning person. ;)
Wait a minute...Tiki room? I heard they closed this! I'll have to check it out next time I go.
So it is possible to do a productive trip without having to wrap your head around FastPass -- if you show up early and do the popular-but-lower-capacity rides first (in our case, Space Mountain and Buzz). Then do the not-as-popular-and-lower capacity rides (Tea Cups, Storybook Land, Tom Sawyer Island), followed by the popular-and-high-capacity attractions (Mansion and Pirates).
And if you want to ride the train, you must board at Main Street! Don't even think about getting on elsewhere, or you'll be stuck behind tired, frustrated riders foolishly trying to use the train as an "easy" way to get back to Main Street -- even though they'll wait longer in line for the train than it would have taken them to walk.
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